Sit down with your knees bent and feet flat on the ground. Lean back slightly, engaging the core and keeping the back straight. Hold your arms out straight in front of you as you lift your feet off the floor. Make sure to keep your legs together as you point your toes towards the ceiling and form a V with your body. Hold for 10 seconds. For a modification, keep the knees bent and open as wide as your hips, with shins parallel to the floor.
Lie down on your stomach. Place your forearms flat on the mat and bend your knees so that they're touching the mat. Engage your core and lift your body off the mat, balancing on your knees and forearms. You can stay here, or from this position, raise your knees off the mat so that you are one straight line from your head to your feet.
Hold for 10 seconds, then return your knees to the mat. She is a certified personal trainer, yoga and Pilates instructor and weight-loss coach for women.
Join her complimentary health and weight-loss challenge , and follow her on Instagram for daily inspiration. Seedman, Ph. Reminder: Your abs exercise routine shouldn't consist of crunches alone, but they can be beneficial to include in your workout if you perform them correctly.
If you still feel neck pain after making adjustments to your technique—or you want to mitigate the risk of hurting yourself altogether—consider swapping crunches, which target only the rectus abdominis muscle for other exercises that target your entire core. Think: core exercises that activate your obliques, rectus abdominis, and transversus abdominis your deepest abs muscle all at once, like the bird-dog, woodchop, and spider plank.
So what can go wrong when doing crunches? Think of your spine like a noodle: It can bend back, forth, and around, but the structure remains linked together in one fluid line at all times. The exception to this is your cervical spine, which is the top portion that runs from your shoulders up into your skull. Despite being physically connected, your head has the ability to move independently from the rest of the noodle. And when you go to do a crunch, your head may lag behind, disrupting the perfect arc and causing a strain on those supporting neck muscles thanks to gravity, explains McCall.
If performed properly, crunches will keep your spine in line from lower back to head. But if you let the head lag, you're leaving your neck vulnerable to a strain. But with enough pressure, this improper form can actually lead to a bulging disc, which comes with serious pain, numbness, and muscle weakness. But is this really the most effective way to work towards a toned midsection?
The answer is no. A lot of back injuries can be attributed to repeated flexing and extending of the spine. This is the exact movement you are doing performing a crunch. Yes, you feel them in your abs, but it's not quite the way your core was designed to work and it comes at the expense of your back.
According to Harvard Medical School, crunches are hard on your back, since they "push your curved spine against the floor and work your hip flexors, the muscles that run from the thighs to the lumbar vertebrae in the lower back. Some people lift more than the upper half of their body.
Due to this, their head may lag behind, disrupting the normal curve of the spine, which causes strain in the neck muscle. While performing crunches, your spine, starting right from your lower back to the head should be in line.
If your head lags, you might put extra pressure to bring it up and may experience neck pain. Tuck your chin down as if you are holding a ball under it. If you really want to get washboard abs then add different kinds of exercises in your workout routine. Our abdomen is made up of numerous small and large muscles. However, crunches only target your rectus abdominis muscle.
Bird-dog, woodchop, spider plank are some exercises that can help you target other core muscles. Please Click Here to subscribe other newsletters that may interest you, and you'll always find stories you want to read in your inbox. A weekly guide to the biggest developments in health, medicine and wellbeing delivered to your inbox.
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